††The microphone is an instrument for picking up sound waves for recording, amplifying or broadcasting.
A London musician, David E. Hughes, discovered in 1878 that the pressure of sound waves can be used to change the electrical resistance in granules of carbon lying loosely between electrical terminals. This discovery led him to create the first microphone. Hughes coined the word microphone, even though Alexander Graham Bell's telephone had contained a similar device.
Thomas Edison, as part of his telephone, patented the amplifying carbon microphone and provided a partial solution to the problem of transmitting telephone signals over long distances.
The first real usable electric microphone was tested in 1916 at Madison Square Gardens, New York.
